


Isabella's Diner

by TeamThor



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Donuts, Hallucinations, Hurt Thor (Marvel), M/M, Minor Character Death, Original Character(s), Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Pre-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Thor (Marvel) Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 07:50:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19902289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeamThor/pseuds/TeamThor
Summary: After the Snap, Thor needs grounding, and goes back to a dusty town in New Mexico where things all began. Only, it doesn't quite go as planned





	Isabella's Diner

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, it's been a while! I wrote this fic with my friend @woahthisguy on tumblr, he's amazing! Again, my tumblr is @TeamThorsBlog. This fic is a little angst-heavy, and involves a personal hc of mine that Thor revisited the Diner from thor 1 enough to become friends with the owner. Anyways, enjoy!

It had always been easy to navigate his feelings. Banished to earth, that made him sad. Seeing Hulk on Sakaar, that made him happy. And by all accounts losing a battle as monumental as this should've culminated in some sort of emotion. People had crumbled into dust in front of him, people he knew, people he didn't. He'd felt their ashes on his skin. Thanos's blood marked his failure in a purple stain across the metal of his axe - he felt an acrid taste in his mouth when he wrestled with the fact that he could've died getting that axe. He'd given his life for it, or at least he'd been ready to. 

And now Thanos had spilt his blood on it, and he hadn't even died. It was inconsiderate, really. 

So was killing half the universe. 

And still, he couldn't muster the strength it would take to be angry. He knew he should be, Norns he knew he should be. But he was numb. 

There were so many things he wanted to do, wanted to say as they made their way back to the compound. But the only thought he could articulate was run. Run from the prying eyes and the concerned glances to somewhere...he didn't know where. He just knew he had to go somewhere.  
The team was worried about him, he knew that. He knew the way that they looked at him. Especially Bruce.  
Bruce Banner was most definitely worried. He'd felt it in the scientists arms, locked around him, letting him sob into his shoulder in the brief moment of respite they'd had before he'd left. 

He couldn't think about that now. He hated thinking about it. Loathed it, even, if he was going to be as dramatic as all that. He needed quiet, a safe place to think, if such a thing even existed anymore. 

And luckily for him, he had somewhere. 

The first feelings of doubt bubbled in his chest when he landed in New Mexico. The small town had gone through quite the change since he'd crashed there, all those years ago. What had started as a half empty ghost-town had grown exponentially, helped by the advancements Jane had made.  
He didn't even know if Jane was alive, or if she'd been destroyed like so many others.  
Maybe he'd find out in the coming days, but for now, he had his eyes focused on something else.  
A small diner, a cup of coffee, and a donut. A sense of home, even if it wasn't his. 

The bell ringing above the door as he walked in gave him more comfort than was probably necessary. It was a sigil to him, the same light tinkling that had accompanied so many post mission meetings that he'd lost count. He'd made a point to bring all of the avengers here at least once, even brought Bruce here a couple of times. It was different to what he was used to. Linoleum tiles and the smell of baking was a far cry from golden spires and rainbow bridges, but he'd learned long ago that it was just as good. And right now, he needed just as good. 

His bruised fingers brushed over the leather of the booth as he sat down, drawing his jacket closer around himself.  
Part of him kept telling him that this wasn't going to help. The Avengers knew it, he knew it - a cup of coffee wasn't going to fix him. But it couldn't hurt to try, right?

Fingers tapped the tabletop next to him, directing his eye-line up to a soft voice, and the faint crinkling of a notebook being flipped. 

"I thought you might be visiting soon." Isabella began, pen clicking and being poised over paper. "I didn't expect the haircut, though. I barely recognise you without all the blonde."

"Well, that makes two of us." Thor wanted to manage a smile, he really did, but it came out a lot more like a grimace. "It wasn't exactly consensual." 

"That sounds like a hell of a story." She glanced around the empty diner, maybe on an ever-resolute duty to greet customers, but there weren't any. Not today.  
The sofa creaked as she sat across from him, folding her arms in her lap.  
"You didn't bring any of your friends with you?" 

"No, no. They're busy." He swallowed thickly, digging his suddenly restless hands into his sleeves, tugging at the loose strings worn around the cuffs. "I don't think I'd know what to say to them, anyway." 

"Who says you'd have to say anything?" 

"I think it'd be frowned upon, if I began my apology for letting half the universe die with a wordless gesture."

"Ah." She nodded knowingly. He didn't know how she knew, but she did. She always did.  
"So you came here to think on things. Back where it all began, for you at least."

Thor lowered his head, watching the sand roll by in the breeze from the window. Watched the sun, low in the sky, cast an orange glow onto the city. It should've been brighter here. A faint pang of sorrow echoed back to Bruce's lesson on light pollution, tiny particles blocking out the sun.  
The dust of billions of people would certainly put a damper on things. 

"You know you don't have to apologize." A hand, warm with life, rested against his wrist that felt cold by comparison. 

Since Nivadellir, everything felt cold by comparison. He'd worried that perhaps the experience had charred his nerve endings, but Bruce's exasperated sigh had told him in no uncertain terms that that really wasn't how nerve endings worked. At least, not Midgardian ones. And then he'd retorted that he wasn't midgardian anyway, so why was Bruce bothering with Midgardian medicine, when he was clearly fine and didn't need any help and didn't want it either and-

"Thor." Isabella shook his wrist again, dragging his mind back to the present. "Hon, you're drifting a little. Maybe you should call someone."

He shook his head, feeling the table under his fingertips once again become firm as his mind struggled to settle into this reality.  
"There's no one to call, Isabella. I came so close to winning this, all of it. My axe tasted his blood. But I didn't…" he broke off, clenching his teeth against the sudden bout of shaking that threatened to crumple his body further.  
"I didn't go for the head." 

Things went quiet again after that. He didn't cry - in fact he'd made a firm promise to himself that after his outburst at the compound he was done with tears - but he couldn't quite bring himself to speak. Words were beginning to fail him, as if his allspeak too was fading away. Nothing made sense, the voices on the radio crackled meaningless words, and he was alone. 

"Y'know, I've been running this place for nearly 30 years now." 

Thor looked up. Isabella was looking around the diner, empty as it was, with a soft smile. 

"That's before you got here. I saved up for so long to buy this place, and once I got it, I swore I'd never let anything happen to it. I'd clean every window, every oven, and make sure anyone who came here left with a smile." She leant forward somewhat, gesturing to the glass door at the front of the diner.  
"Now, you see that window?" 

Thor hummed his agreement, although he couldn't say he understood where this was going. If it was even going anywhere. 

"About 10 years ago, one very rude young man threw a brick through that one. Shattered glass all over my tables, all while I was standing right there at the counter." She sighed then, shaking her head at the windowpane, shutting her eyes against the memory. "20 years I kept the place without a scratch, and some guy turns up and ruins it in 10 seconds."

"Did you also fail to decapitate the man who did this?" 

"Shh. I'm trying to make a point here." She swatted his arm, grinning fondly.  
"Now, I couldn't do anything to stop that window from being smashed. Couldn't put it back together once it was broken. But what I could do was ask. Ask my friends, ask my family - there's people out there who love you, and are willing to help you. But you gotta be the one to extend that hand, otherwise...otherwise nothings gonna get done, y'understand?"

Thor...didn't understand. Not quite. A broken window was a lot different from the deaths of billions, and that was on earth alone. His failure stretched out across the universe, tendrils of it snaking out like cracks against glass. And...he'd never needed to ask his friends for help before. He was strong, maybe not the strongest, but stronger than most. 

A true king does not burden others with his own sorrows, Odin's voice rattled around his skull.  
He stands alone, strong, like the mountain.

"Isabella, truly, you are the wiser of us both. I am humbled by your council."

He looked up, raising his hand to pat her on the arm in a show of thanks, but stopped cold in his tracks. 

She was gone.

The diner was empty. 

Thor stood with a frown. She'd been here just a second ago, he told himself, moving around the table. 

"Isabella?" Perhaps she'd gone to the kitchens, or to refill a pot of coffee. Still, he couldn't hide the growing panic in his voice. He couldn't lose another person. He couldn't. Not now.  
"Isabella, are you still here?"

"Can I help you?" A second voice, one unfamiliar to him, called out from behind the counter. 

He turned sharply, and came to face a young woman. Decidedly not Isabella, although she did share her eyes. 

"I'm looking for Isabella, she...she must've gone out, or something. We were just talking."

"Oh, you're Thor, right? She mentioned you a couple of times." A pained expression crossed her face, hands moving to clasp around a dough-stained apron in a show of nervousness, fingers fidgeting nervously with strings and pockets.  
"She...she didn't make it. Joined everyone else in...I don't know. When whatever happened, happened." 

His heartbeat pounded incessantly in his ears, and for a moment, he felt he was back on the Statesman. Metal, crushing his lungs. Nowhere to move. Nowhere to run.

He'd only been talking to motes riding the last of the evening sun's rays, a glimmer of his lost hope, fragile and a farce. A ghost, of someone long gone. 

He couldn't quite place his finger on the word for how wrong this felt. The passing of his friends had been tragic. It had broken something inside of him that he didn't know was still intact. But that had been a battlefield, he'd lost people on the battlefield before. He was Odin's warrior, protector of the nine realms - from the first time he'd picked up a sword, he'd been taught that friends die, out there in the blood and the sand. Their deaths, if done with enough spectacle, would lead to entrance into Valhalla, pulled by a chariot and greeted with a heroes welcome. 

He didn't know how to handle the death of a woman who ran a diner. Someone who was as far away from the battle as they could be. Someone who died, perhaps polishing a table or pouring out coffee for a customer. 

When his mind wandered to the particularly morbid, Thor fancied he could tell where the dust had first fell. A particular area of the diner, just by the window, had been scrubbed clean - almost viciously. In a way, he understood. His own hands had been rubbed raw from a solid hour that he'd spent over the sink once they'd returned to the compound, scrubbing over and over at dust mixed with purple blood that seemed to have stained his skin down to the bone. 

He remembered ripping off his armour with such a force that it had torn newly healed wounds, and toyed with the idea of burning it. But in his heart, he knew that summoning a storm wasn't going to happen today.  
Besides, Bruce hadn't let things get any further than that. He'd felt pathetic when the scientist had found him, kneeling on his bedroom floor, bruised and battered with his armour scattered around him. Bruce had grabbed his hands, covered his shoulders in arms tinted green, and held him while he'd screamed his sorrows to the wind. 

The memory brought him little comfort now, sitting in a cramped booth, skin cooled by the tiled walls he'd pressed himself up against.  
His entire being ached, the thousands of years he'd spent alive piling up on his shoulders. He had no appetite for violence, not anymore. 

The falling Wakandan soldiers, the Maximoff girl, Sam son of Will, Steven's wartime comrade…

Heimdall.

Loki.

Every dead face swarmed in front of his eyes, and now he knew what he was wishing for.

He wished he'd done better. 

He wished he'd joined them. 

"Hey, you alright? You look like you need to sit down." 

The woman's concerned voice took a while to reach his ears, and when it did it didn't feel good. It felt like pity, someone he should've sheltered from tragedy asking gently if he was ok, her voice holding a hint of caution as if she was dealing with something made of glass. Something fragile. And he was not content to fall into that role. Not now. Not when a grinding sense of urgency still pulses through his veins, leftover adrenaline screaming at him to do something but failing to define what that thing was. 

Thor took a shaky breath, planting one hand on the table beside him to try and give some semblance of stability. 

"I'm so sorry." He finally managed, a hoarse whisper forced from the back of his throat. 

The daughter lowered her head somewhat, hair falling in eyes that scanned the diner almost constantly, checking and double checking each table for something resembling the life that was there just days ago. 

"It's ok." She forced a somewhat watery smile, raising a hand to pat his own. "I still talk to her too. I think I always will. We don't even know if they're dead. But it doesn't matter. What's done is done, we can only move forward."

"I don't...I don't know if I can."

"No...no, me neither." 

A somewhat awkward pause followed as tears that had been held back for so long started spilling, and were promptly wiped roughly from eyes that had seen far too much tragedy in the recent days. 

"I should go." Thor nodded, feeling a familiar drive in his soul to move, and a somber thought settling across his mind that this had been his last safe haven. 

There was nowhere to go to. Nowhere but back to the compound - to empty rooms, to tears cutting paths down dust-stained cheeks. Back to the final concrete marking of his failure to the world. 

Avenger. 

That's all he could do, now. Avenge something lost, something that wasn't coming back, no matter how much uncertainty it was shrouded in. 

"Here."  
A cardboard box was pushed into his hands, the daughter stepping back promptly, almost as if she'd been holding an infinity stone herself. 

Thor lifted the lid, arching an eyebrow.  
"Donuts?" 

"For you. And your team." The daughter cleared her throat, clasping her hands together, suddenly unsure of quite what to do with them.  
"I'm not a donut person myself. I only came down here to check on my mom, and...but, anyway. She'd want you to take these. Even if they're not exactly up to her standards."

"I can't take these. Its-" he faltered for an excuse, anything outside of I don't deserve this, half the universe is dead because of me, I can't deserve this.  
"It's too generous." 

"Nonsense. Consider it a thank you."

"For what?"

"For trying." 

...Trying.  
Thank you for trying.  
The words sounded foreign in his mind, and for a moment he wondered if a blow to the head had damaged his allspeak momentarily, because that did not sound right. You did not get thanked for trying, especially not when failure was the ultimate outcome.  
If he'd fallen in Asgards training grounds, if he'd failed to wield his hammer just so, he didn't get a thank you for trying. 

His eyes stung as he accepted the box, trying to hide the tremor in his hands. 

It didn't subside, even when he arrived back at the compound, skin tingling from the bifrost. It had been torture to pick up Stormbreaker again, the sharp smell of antiseptic and bleach clinging to the blade after the rather valiant efforts in removing the titans blood. But he imagined it would've been worse to go home the long way round. To see each face, each new suffering, and to have his heart break anew. 

He cradled the box against his chest, allowing Stormbreaker to clatter to the ground outside before he entered, following the murmur of voices to the common room where people had gathered.  
It was quieter than it should've been, the sounds cleaved in two by a hand that didn't care enough to justify the legacy of bloodshed it had left behind. And it was much too quiet for him to slip in unnoticed. 

He caught Bruce's eyes as he walked in, and Norns the scientist looked tired. Fingertips stained with ink, glasses crooked and clothes rumpled. The sharp lines softened somewhat when Thor headed towards the table, and he could tell Bruce had a million questions. Bruce always had a million questions, about anything and everything. He supposed that's why he liked him, because he liked answering things. He liked explaining Asgards science and spacecraft, unraveling the rumors of his world to a face that just wouldn't stop smiling when presented with knowledge.  
He knew Bruce wanted answers now. And it burned more than Nivadellir's forge that he couldn't provide them. 

"Hey, Thor." Steve caught his arm, palm resting against the crook of his elbow, brows creasing in concern. "We got a little worried when you took off like that. Where'd you go?" 

Thor glanced up, mismatched eyes looking about the room. Looking at his friends, who'd turned from their conversations, and were looking to him for an answer. 

He cleared his throat, opening his mouth to say something. Anything. He could talk to them. He knew them, they knew him. He just needed to find the words. Find a way to tell them that he was carrying this weight on his shoulders and he needed help and he just wanted to scream but he couldn't and- 

"I...I was visiting a friend." Thor shut his eyes against the lie, pushing the box onto the table. "She wanted me to give you these. As a thank you." 

He tried to ignore the way Bruce's eyes flitted to the box, to the logo and the hand written receipt because he knew. Bruce always knew. The scientist had found his answer, his chair creaking as he moved to his feet. 

Another hand pressed against his arm, as the scientist looked up at him, trying to push a lifeline into the arms of someone who was drowning. 

"Thor, what happened?" Bruce's fingers wound their way into his jacket, gripping tight enough to whiten his bruised knuckles. 

Thor looked at him then, and he really wished he hadn't. Bruce was brighter than the stars themselves, and there was an aching in his soul, the final sensible part of him begging his mind to just accept the help. To let him be held, to finally allow him to rest. 

One of his hands, calloused and battle worn, ghosted over Bruce's.  
And then he turned away.  
The door of the living room closed behind him, his hand reaching out to reach for Stormbreaker. 

Next time, Isabella. 

Next time, I go for the head.


End file.
